There are certain life skills that have pretty much made the adult me.

The ability to apologize. You wouldn’t believe how far that takes you with people.

The ability to laugh at oneself. Which, naturally, makes me a one-man comedy.

The ability to say no to purchases I don’t need. No TV/Netflix, used cars…it adds up.

But probably the most valuable life skill is the ability to articulate the hidden lies I’m believing.

We have two kinds of beliefs: head beliefs and heart beliefs. Head beliefs are the ones we’re aware of, the ones we’ve explicitly processed and given mental consent to, like the existence of gravity. It’s easier to articulate those beliefs, though we don’t necessarily act according to them.

On the other hand, heart beliefs exist without words, as something closer to instincts, triggered often by challenges or difficult choices. Typically, they’re difficult to put words to, because they race through your mind in the blink of an eye in those moments. We can live for years without spotting them.

An innocent example is procrastination.

When we put off a task, something in our hearts has probably said, “This isn’t a big deal to me right now.” Otherwise, we’d do it. Again, that belief rarely slow-marches through the mind for full-on processing. It flashes through, more an instinct than a statement.

Another example is outbursts.

If you haul off and yell at someone after a hard day, it’s often because of some deep impulse that goes something like, “I’ve earned the right to let loose on this moron”?

A dark example is pornography.

Men, when we linger on a photo or video we shouldn’t view, it’s because our hearts flashed a message like, “It’s okay to view this.” It’s unspoken, almost imperceptible, and opposed to the other voice – the head belief – saying “this isn’t right”. If it were our heart belief protesting the sin, as it does with, say, bank robbery, we wouldn’t do it.

There’s a saying you might have heard: “The distance between heaven and hell is two feet – the distance between your heart and your head.” Meaning, it is with our heart that we truly believe, while mere head knowledge gets us nowhere. The Bible treats the heart as the core of the person; Jesus says that it’s the heart that generates what comes out of a man (Matt. 12:33-35).

I’ve found this double-mindedness to be all too true in my life.

I struggle to drop that tithe check. My head says God will catch me. My heart cringes, not trusting him to come through at all.

Work trips me up. My head says it’s okay, mistakes happen. My heart wants to apologize excessively to my coworkers, fishing for reassurance.

A friend moves away. My head tells me it’s hard, but this is life – be happy for his new opportunity. My heart is freaking out. “Everyone’s going to leave.”

Any of this sound familiar?

Those heart beliefs drive far too much of what I do. Too often, it’s those unspoken instincts that determine how I treat others, how I organize life, how I view God. Most of us could probably confess to heart beliefs like God’s not really in control or God doesn’t really care, because honestly, that’s how we live. We live as if we’re on our own, as if nobody is going to come through for us.

Which means that one of the greatest possible life skills is the ability to put words to those heart beliefs. Only then can we change them.

Here’s an effective strategy I’ve devised for articulating heart beliefs: listen. Simply hit a crisis, big or small, and pay attention to what bubbles up from the soul. Don’t react, speak, act – just turn your eyes inward, and listen to what your emotions or instincts are saying. (God is a huge help with this reflection process, by the way.)

Then we ask God to change our heart beliefs, to transfer what’s in the head down to the heart. We ask him for his truth, meditate upon it, soak it in.

He’ll come through. I’ve experienced it. Slowly, the ship of my soul is tacking. I’m seeing him as kinder, more patient, more holy, and more glorious than I ever thought.

I’m glad you tuned in today. If you found this post to be of value, please feel free to share it on social media. Thanks a bunch!